Forgot to mention

Yesterday, my friend Koleen and I experienced one of those "we don't know what an Icelander would do" sort of moments. Her son had been playing with a boy from school, they came home to her house. She asked when he was supposed to go home, and he said he had no curfew. She figured this happens in Iceland. So she gave him dinner. And they did homework together. And then it was time for her son to go to bed. At this point, the little boy announces that actually, he does not know how to get home. At which point, Koleen calls me. Well, first she tried to call the number she had from school for this kid's family, but no one answered. She told me all this, and we both sat there for a minute, wondering what the social expectation is in Iceland in a situation like this. Was she supposed to let the boy stay over, give him jammies? Would the boys parents freak out if she did that, call the cops on her? Or would they think that was normal?

Anyhow, I said to her that I thought probably she should try to find another number for the boy on ja.is, because I figured Icelandic parents called around when they could not find their children.

Thankfully, that worked.

Comments

Anonymous said…
well, they probably wouldn't freak - but wow, I don't think this is normal, for a kid not to know when to come home. 19:00 is pretty normal, before dinner. They're not allowed to be out on their own longer than to 20:00 anyway. Fortunately it's normally easy to find people, with most ppl having their mobile number in the phone book.

There was this little boy, Finnur's friend, who kept wanting to eat here and I didn't have the heart to send him home, since I knew there probably wasn't any dinner at his place, he and his sister had to make do with a slice of bread or something. Then they moved away.
October 28, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Ko-Leen said…
I had a cell number for his mom from the school but no one was answering (turns out the mother was in school so her phone was off). After looking up his address on ja.is I found his dads number, who then came to get him.
He had no idea how to get home so it was a bit of a pickle.
(didn't help that he kept insisting hat he did not live with his parents, he had his own place, next door to his parents house)
October 28, 2009 at 6:36 PM
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